Marriage Equality: Now in Australia!

Finally! Marriage equality has been passed in Australia. I’ve been telling people who I would be extremely surprised if it was legalised by Christmas like they promised. I thought that the debate in Parliament would have been much nastier and full of delays, but colour me surprised!

At the end, they were trying to push through amendments (some had no possibility of passing) but all were voted down. This included things that included civil celebrants (not the people in the church) to object marrying based on their religious beliefs and personal beliefs.

I’m a little split on my feelings about that. I wouldn’t really expect someone with strong religious beliefs to marry me with another man if they weren’t comfortable with it. I wouldn’t a fuss or go to Facebook and leave them really nasty messages. I’d let it go. What one person won’t do, someone else will. I think courtesy goes a long way. If someone isn’t going to make me a cake, then well, they just lost a sale and as long as they’re not nasty about it, it’s all good. I don’t want to be called names or feel like a terrible person when I’m wedding cake shopping. I don’t think religion should allow people to be assholes, which I am afraid would happen with some of the amendments.

So what’s in store for me regarding this? I’ve been waiting for this result for a while to determine what will happen in 2018 and have made a decision that I will most likely marry in Australia and celebrate it in the USA. Two separate events but I don’t know how big and/or small they will be. I have to work on that during my time off.

I’m still mentally processing what this means because I haven’t been in a country long enough where it’s legal. It scares me a little bit. There’s a lot of uncertainty (in my head) surrounding marriage. It’s something we’ve been chatting about lately. Every time something changes, I get a little more confused! Haha.

Anyway, HUGE congratulations for the win to the whole Australian LGBTI community.